To generate renunciation of the entire samsara, we need to stop our clinging to samsaric perfections. Generating renunciation of this life means cutting off clinging to the comforts of this life: food, clothing, reputation. This does not mean we should not have good food, clothing or reputation, but that we should stop clinging to the appearances of the comforts of this life. We have to stop clinging and worldly concern, from which all the confusion and problems of life arise and which do not allow our everyday actions to become holy Dharma.
Establishing renunciation of this life in our mind does not mean wearing ragged clothes and eating poor food. Beggars and street dogs eat poor food, but this does not mean they have renounced this life. You cannot judge renunciation from the outside, only by understanding the inner mind. You may look renounced because you wear ragged clothes and eat poor food, but your mind may be strongly craving a reputation. You may be living a simple life in order to gain a reputation as an ascetic meditator. Just as worldly people with no intention of practicing Dharma may dress in expensive clothes, eat rich food and live in luxurious houses for the happiness of this life, another person may eat poor food, wear ragged clothes and live in a rundown house or a cave. If you do not watch your mind, you cannot be sure whether you are living a renounced life or not.
One recent lam-rim lineage lama said:
One who has renounced this life does not return anger when somebody is angry towards him. When somebody insults him, he doesn't return their insult. When somebody beats him, he doesn't beat them in return. The person who is able to practice like this is renounced.
Many of you have met or seen one of the oldest ascetic meditators in Dharamsala, Gen Jampa Wangdu, from whom I received the oral transmission of the "taking the essence" pill retreat. Many years ago Gen Jampa Wangdu lived a simple life, wearing poor, badly colored robes. He told me: "The reason I wear good robes now is that people complain when I wear them. They say that I'm supposed to be an ascetic, but I'm wearing such rich clothes that I can't be an ascetic. They think I have plenty of money, so they don't come so much to make offerings. This is very good for me."
Going completely against self-cherishing thought and worldly concern, which wants a good reputation, is a real sign of renunciation. When Gen Jampa Wangdu wears rich robes, people judge him by his external appearance and complain that he is not acting like an ascetic monk; this completely opposes worldly concern and also self-cherishing. He wears rich robes because he finds it very helpful to have people talk about him like this. Renunciation depends on the mind, not on the external appearance.
How to do the meditation session
Each time you do a session, before meditating on lam-rim, visualize the merit field, either elaborately or simply, and offer a mandala. The merit field should not be referred to as "the guru tree." This is an incorrect translation and is meaningless, giving you nothing more than an idea of a tree with gurus sitting in it. The Tibetan term tsog shing means something quite different. The translator did not understand the meaning of tsog shing, but simply translated according to what is depicted in thangkas of the merit field. If you translate the Tibetan term precisely, with understanding of grammar and the meaning of the words, tsog is merit and shing is field.
People survive and obtain their enjoyments through planting seeds of corn, potatoes and rice in fields. If you are not lazy but plant the field, through your own effort you can then obtain enjoyments. A field is recognized as very precious and to be taken care of because you can use it to plant crops. Similarly, by making offerings and doing prostrations to the merit field of guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you plant the seed of merit, or good karma, in order to receive all temporal and ultimate happiness and perfections. By planting the seed of merit in this field, you are able to accomplish the three great purposes: a perfect human body in order to practice the holy Dharma in your next life, the cessation of samsara and full enlightenment. All happiness, including these three great purposes, comes from merit.
Receiving enjoyments - even a good harvest - depends on accumulating merit. The guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are the field in which you plant the seed of merit. You should actually cherish this field as much more precious than any external field. Lama Tsongkapa says in The Great Lamrim Commentary:
Worldly people feel it a great loss if they don't plant a field from which they have the opportunity to receive crops once or twice a year. For planting the seed of merit in the merit field of guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, there is no such thing as a season; planting does not depend on the season. Four times each day you can plant the seed of merit in this holy field.
Lama Tsongkapa is saying that each day you can plant the seed of merit to accomplish the three great purposes, and any other happiness you wish. Four times each day, all the time, you have the opportunity to plant the seed of merit in the supreme holy field of guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Lama Tsongkapa says that being careless and not taking the opportunity to do this is a much greater loss than being unable to plant crops in an ordinary field.
Not only four times a day, but every hour, every minute, every second, you can plant the seed of merit, the cause of happiness. With an ordinary field, you first plant something, then have to wait until it ripens; you cannot plant again while a crop is already there. Among all fields, the holy field of merit is the supreme field. There is no interference from the side of the object preventing you from accumulating merit. The interference is only from your own side, if you do not accumulate merit and create the cause of happiness in your relationship with these holy objects.
As well as the holy merit field, there is also the field of sentient beings in which you can plant the seed of merit. You can also create the cause of happiness in dependence upon the field of sentient beings. Just as you receive crops by planting seed in a field, by planting the seed of merit in the holy merit field and the field of sentient beings, you receive all temporal and ultimate happiness.
You can visualize either the elaborate merit field, as in Lama Chöpa, or simply Guru Shakyamuni Buddha as the embodiment of all objects of refuge. This one aspect of Buddha embodies all gurus, all Buddhas, all Dharma and all Sangha. This is called the "Jewel Tradition of the All-Encompassing Aspect." You can also visualize Thousand-arm or Four-Arm Chenrezig, whichever aspect you prefer. Visualize whichever merit field you wish.
Before doing the lam-rim meditation, offer a mandala. Following the mandala prayer, offer the whole world and all the other planets, aware of all the precious sense objects that are in this and other worlds. Even scientists say there are many universes. You should especially offer to the merit field all the objects to which you cling very much: your body, possessions and friends. Fill space with the highest quality offerings you can think of - all the sense objects, the planets and so on. By reading and studying the commentaries, you can learn the exact details of the meditations that accord with the mandala offering prayer.
The mandala offering is a method to accumulate extensive merit in a short time. Having intellectual knowledge of the teachings of the path and training your mind in that alone do not help. That is like putting a dry seed on a rock without the necessary conditions of heat, water, minerals and soil - the seed cannot grow. Training your mind in intellectual understanding of the teachings alone does not affect your mind. In order for the teachings of the path to enlightenment to affect your mind, transforming it into the path, you need to purify obstacles and accumulate the cause, which means merit, to generate the realizations in your mind. The mandala offering is one of the most important means to accumulate extensive merit in a short time.
The essential technique is to offer as many best quality mandalas as possible, with visualization according to the prayer. You accumulate more merit by clearly visualizing many offerings. As clearly as you can, think of offering many golden mountains or universes. Right in that moment you accumulate the extensive merit of actually offering that many golden mountains or universes. Even though you do not have even one atom of gold, you accumulate unbelievable merit: the cause to develop your mind and generate the path to enlightenment. There are scriptural references for how you receive the incredible merit of actually offering universes and gold. This meditation technique of visualizing the mandala offering according to the prayer has incredible advantages.
When you finish offering the short mandala, make a strong request to the merit field for all the interferences and obstacles to generating the whole path - from wrong conceptions towards the guru up to subtle dual view - to be pacified. All these obstacles need to be purified. If you are training your mind in the graduated path of the small scope, you need to purify the particular obstacles to realization of the small scope. Also request the merit field to be able to generate all the realizations from guru devotion up to enlightenment, particularly the realizations of the graduated path of the small scope.
White nectar beams are emitted from the merit field, purifying all your obscurations and those of all other sentient beings. Having purified all the interfering obscurations, you then generate all the realizations - particularly those of perfect human rebirth, its usefulness and the difficulty of receiving it again; impermanence and death; and karma. Think that the realizations from beginning to end, from guru devotion up to enlightenment, and especially the realizations of the graduated path of the small scope are generated within your mind and within the minds of all sentient beings.
If your sessions are short, motivate like this in the beginning: "From beginningless rebirths, I and all sentient beings have been experiencing samsaric suffering because we lack the realizations of the graduated path of the small scope: perfect human rebirth, its usefulness, and so on. I must achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, therefore I am going to meditate on the lam-rim. Please grant all the lam-rim realizations, particularly those of the graduated path of the small scope, in my mind and in the minds of all sentient beings."
To achieve the realization of renunciation of this life, you should train your mind in the graduated path of the small scope, which is the general foundation for the realizations of the graduated paths of the intermediate and great scopes, including the graduated path of tantra. On the basis of correct devotion to the virtuous friend in thought and action, as explained by Guru Shakyamuni Buddha in the sutra and tantra teachings, you train your mind in the beginning of the lam-rim, the eight freedoms and ten richnesses of this perfect human rebirth.
I thought to speak a little more on the graduated path of the small scope, as it might help you to continue your Dharma practice. I am hoping it might stop the mind that is feeling discouraged and hopeless from becoming more and more depressed by the thought that nothing is happening, that there is no progress. Sometimes you may feel so depressed that you cannot do anything, not even eat. I am hoping that doing these basic meditations might encourage you to continue to practice, and to practice more purely.
To generate renunciation of this life, you should turn your mind to the fundamental lam-rim meditations, starting with perfect human rebirth. You should understand how precious this human body qualified with eight freedoms and ten richnesses is.
